The CIDEF accreditation for professional members (i.e. holding the Chartered Development Finance Analyst (CDFA) professional award) brings value both to members of the profession and to those who benefit from the work of professional development finance specialist. Viewed from the profession, accreditation testifies that there is a body of knowledge known as development finance, which accredited practitioners of development finance must be well versed in that knowledge at an advanced level, and must have applied it competently and ethically through academic qualification(s) and/or practice for several years.